French Word of the Day:  carême (car-em)- Lent

I’ve mentioned my new diet in the past. After getting my new diagnosis, I unleashed my inner journalist and researched everything I possibly could about food.

My diet now cuts out high sodium, white flour, white sugar, beef, and dairy (obviously).  That’s right.  I’m one of those annoying people who only eat whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean protein.

And dark chocolate.  Which is totally a healthy food.

I’ll be eating mostly at home, because trying to find a low sodium, dairy free, whole grain option at restaurants is rather like trying to fit the Sears Tower through the eye of a needle: impossible.

As I’m already giving up most food, I’ve decided not to give anything up for Lent.  I think this more than counts.  In solidarity, my mom and sister Alyssa will be joining my diet. (There you go!  I’ve called you both out, so now you have to follow through 😉 )

I also tried to guilt my dad into following it, but he has informed me that as he grew up as a Methodist, Catholic guilt won’t work on him.

If anyone wants to try to talk him off drinking 3 million sodas a day (how about just going down to one a day?), I already played the “sick daughter” card and failed.  Good luck.

French Word of the Day: essence (es- sawn-suh)- essence

I had a fabulous 25th birthday.  I felt extremely spoiled by the end of it.  There was lots of merriment and food, just as every quarter century celebration should have.

One thing I’ve developed courtesy of some of my medication is lactose intolerance.  I didn’t even know medicine could cause that until I got sick every time I ate a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.  (Don’t judge.  You know you’ve done it.) It became a problem when I lived in Paris because those French people are practically made entirely of dairy products, but I’ve been doing decently okay here.

I used to still be able to tolerate butter, but I haven’t been able to after this last round of medicines.  As you might imagine, this has limited my options at restaurants.  They like to sneak it in, so I always have to ask.  I’ve had the following conversation 3 times in the last 5 days:

Me: Does this have dairy in it?

Server: It has eggs.

Me: Eggs aren’t dairy.

Server: Are you sure?

I must have missed the memo somewhere, because a large number of people are convinced that eggs come from milk.

My new butter intolerance has led to a bigger problem: I cannot eat the frosting on cake.  Frosting is an essential part of cake, ergo I am missing the essence of cake.  And guys, essence is important.  And you know what’s more important than essence?  Cake.

But luckily, my friends were on top of the situation.  My friend, Mike, researched dairy-free cakes, went out and bought a bunch of vegan butter and made me a beautiful, vegan red velvet cake.

Thank God for those vegans.  What would lactose intolerant people do without them?  I’ll tell you: not eat cake.